


Seven Things that the Lord Detests

by Skeletorific



Category: Far Cry 5
Genre: Animal Abuse, Animal Death, Brainwashing, Cult, Cutting (non self-harm, Eden's Gate, Gen, Intense Situation, Might be shippy?, Religion, Sort Of, Violence, i'm not sure, knife work, lots of bloody bits
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-04
Updated: 2018-10-13
Packaged: 2019-05-02 01:16:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 13,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14533506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skeletorific/pseuds/Skeletorific
Summary: Its time for ConfessionAfter months in the bunker, the Deputy may finally be ready to unburden herself of her sins.





	1. Where It All Began

**Author's Note:**

> This part is pretty canon compliant, my own spin will be coming in next chapter.

         “This chopper is decidedly non-regulation.” The Marshal remarked ruefully, clambering into the seat across from her.       

          “Eh, she’s a rough gal, but she’ll getcha where you need to be, no question.” Pratt slipped on his headset and patted the dashboard with a grin that was almost lecherous with affection. “Just a few modifications to make it a little harder on the Peggies to steal or shoot her down.”

           “You’ve let them carry off aircraft before?”

           “None of ours.” The Sheriff said, buckling in. He looked more resigned than usual, but was pointedly not looking at the sudden cringe that crossed the Junior Deputy’s face.  
  
            “Yeah, you’ll have to ask the Rookie about that, won’t he Sheriff.”  
  
             “Lay off” Hudson said absently, flipping a few switches while she waited for the engines to warm up. It surprised Molly. Hudson wasn’t usually the one to jump to her defense.  
  
              Burke looked up at her questioningly. She grimaced and looked to the side. “We’d uh....received a call about some cultist activity near a local airstrip. I was sent in to keep an eye on things. Was on stakeout for nearly 19 hours, and...”  
  
               “Fell asleep at the wheel, didn’t wake up until they were taking off.” Pratt chuckled. She felt her cheeks burn with embarrassment.  
  
               “Enough” the Sheriff said. “It was one crop duster. And she should never have been out there alone in the first place. Someone was supposed to be shadowing her.” The pointed remark silenced Pratt, who suddenly became very focused on adjusting his seat belt.  
  
               “That’s a lot of power to simply hand over to a group of dangerous extremists.”  
  
               “Its hardly the first. And Deputy Križ was never supposed to be out there in the first place. If she had engaged all that would have resulted is we’d be going after two missing persons instead of one. Our policy is that unless people are being harmed, we try to avoid direct confrontation with the cultists. Deputy Pratt decided it would be funny to play a game of Chicken with the Peggies with our Junior Deputy here.”  
  
                The Marshal frowned. “You simply allow them waltz off with stolen property?”  
  
                 Silence in the chopper.  
  
                “.....we’re fighting a long war here, Marshal. No use losing good soldiers in petty conflicts.”  
  
               The engines started and they began to rise, for the moment drowning out any possible reply. The Sheriff then pulled his hat low over his eyes and settled in for the flight, indicating that the conversation was over. Burke’s judgemental gaze flicked over to Molly. She chose to ignore him and stared out the window.  
  
               Molly didn’t like the Marshal. Not that he was bad at his job. Perhaps the problem was simply that he was too good. Too efficient. In a way he reminded her of why she had high-tailed it out of Spokane as soon as she’d gotten her cert from the Police Academy. City cops just didn’t get it sometimes. They were rules and efficiency and order. The higher the level the more they saw themselves as the last bastion of defense against the sea of chaos just threatening to break loose. What they failed to understand was one of the first things she’d learned out here: sometimes a good cop’s job was to engage in the chaos. Live within it. Use it. Ride it. And just do your level best to minimize the collateral damage.  
  
               Sometimes you couldn’t just dam up a flood. Sometimes you had to let it wash over you and teach other people how to swim. That was something none of the warrants or federal regulations in the world could teach you.  
  
               Although to be fair to him, maybe some of her dislike at the moment stemmed from embarrassment. It was appeased somewhat by the Sheriff’s defense of her. Whitehorse wasn’t known for being an affectionate boss, but he had torn Pratt a new one over that little stunt. Frankly, she hadn’t been mad at Pratt, just...humiliated. Part of her knew even if she had been conscious she wouldn’t have been able to do anything but...another part of her wondered if she could have given those Peggies a little scare....  
  
               Speaking of which. She took advantage of the last twenty minutes or so of signal to load up the video that had kickstarted this little venture. Some renegade footage shot by a poor intrepid vlogger who had taken a camera and snuck into another one of the meetings at Eden’s Gate. He’d been trying to follow in the footsteps of those three from last summer, but had learned at least a little from their mistakes. He’d hooked his camera up to a wifi booster and livestreamed the entire thing to his channel as it happened. Which had been a good move, as it turned out, since he apparently hadn’t learned the other lesson he should have from the last people to try filming Joseph Seed. Make sure you don’t get caught.  
  
                Last known sighting was the 3000 odd viewers who watched as a couple of the Father’s thugs dragged his twitching body away from the altar. Project Eden could no longer be overlooked, and the federal government had finally gotten involved. Whether that was a good thing or a bad thing....it was hard to say.  
  
               There were certainly unexpected benefits to it. For the first time in nearly 8 months of working with this department, Molly no longer felt like she had the word “Rookie” emblazoned on her forehead. Sure, all of them still called her Rook, and Pratt never missed an opportunity to give her shit (especially with a fresh audience), but the arrival of the Marshal had shifted her standing from outsider to one of them. Because sure, she still couldn’t find her way around the majority of the infinite dirt backroads of the county. But at least she didn’t try to take a recreational hike in the middle of bear country, as Burke had his first day there in a misguided attempt to unwind.  
  
               Still, as she watched the footage, she couldn’t help but feel once again like she was completely out of her depth. She’d watched this video countless times since the first briefing, she could practically say the Father’s sermon for him at this point. And yet regardless....she couldn’t tear her eyes away. Molly had never been in the same room with the cult leader, but even through the shitty cam footage his presence was...palpable. Terrifying. Every now and then he appeared on one of those propaganda ads John Seed would do, and there was something...unnerving about his entire persona. The way he would stare into the camera like he was peering right through it and into the eyes of every single viewer. His gaunt face that was almost handsome past the grime, but still somehow managed to outshine his more polished brother. Joseph Seed wasn’t one who demanded your attention. He simply took it, like it was his birthright, and it never occurred to you to so much as blink in his presence.  
  
               After her third time looping the video it began stopping and starting, before crashing altogether.  
  
               “Hey Rookie” The Sheriff said, pulling her eyes away from the screen as she lowered her phone. “You’re wasting your time, there’s no signal out here.”  
  
               He didn’t really need to tell her that, but she didn’t comment on it. In his own way little reminders like this were the man’s way of looking out for her. Even if they did keep her feeling like a hopeless newcomer at times. “Yeah, the thing just quit on me anyways.” She slipped it back into her pocket and adjusted her headset.  
Burke looked away from her and glanced over his warrant, like he had to remind himself of its contents.  
  
                “Crossin over the Henbane now.” Pratt said. A stone statue peeked into view from out of the cloud, making all of them cringe a bit.  
  
                “Oh fuck there he is.”  
  
                “Crazy motherfucker...” Pratt muttered.  
  
                Sheriff murmured “Jesus” and all she could think was in his eyes? Not far off. She watched the statue go until it was out of sight.  
  
                “We’re officially in Peggie country” Hudson said, glancing back at all of them.  
  
                Burke finally pulled his eyes away from the statue. “How much longer?”  
  
               “Just long enough for you to change your mind so we can turn this bird around.”  
  
               The Marshal looked incredulous. “You want me to ignore a federal warrant, Sheriff?”  
  
               “No sir.” Whitehorse said. “I want you to understand the reality of this situation. Joseph Seed, he’s not a man to be fucked with. We’ve had run-ins with him before and they haven’t always gone our way. Just sometimes....” He looked him in the eyes, earnestly. “Sometimes its best to leave well enough alone.  
  
                Molly looked around at her coworkers. Hudson looked quiet, tense. The way she always did before shit got real. Pratt was still trying to keep up that bravado, but she could tell he was listening quite clearly to everything said in the back. Waiting, praying maybe for the signal to turn back.  
  
               Truth is even she could feel her shoulders hunching in somewhat. Unlike the others, she’d never encountered Joseph before, not even in passing. But she knew enough from her time in Hope County to know that the condescending tone to the Marshal’s next sentence showed more than ever that he had no idea what he was getting the rest of them into.  
  
              “Yeah, well, we have laws for a reason Sheriff. And Joseph Seed’s gonna learn that.”  
  
              Whitehorse made a humming noise in the back of his throat. There was a look on his face Molly had seen before. Whitehorse had spent much of the last couple of years trying to convince people that Joseph Seed was a threat worth taking seriously. Just like then, it seemed he was perpetually doomed to fail at this endeavour. He seemed resigned to whatever shitshow was surely awaiting them at the compound.  
  
             He took a breath and released it. “Pratt, open a call to Dispatch.”  
  
            “10-4” He flicked a switch, and there was a crackle in the headsets as the channel opened.  
  
            “Whitehorse to Dispatch, over.”  
  
            A brief pause as it transmitted. Then a maternal voice came over the airwaves. “Go ahead Earl.”  
  
            Whitehorse looked slightly embarrassed, but there was affection in his eyes that was mirrored in Molly’s slight grin. Nancy had never been one for protocol, even with a federal marshal on site. In her words, she had been running dispatch since the Sheriff was busting parking tickets for a living and she wasn’t about to stop using his Christian name now just because a government man thought it didn’t sound formal enough.  
  
             “We’re approaching the compound Nancy, over.”  
  
              “Roger, Sheriff. Still planning to go through with this? Over”  
  
             He shook his head slightly and glanced at the Marshall. “We are-unfortunately-still trying to talk some sense into our friend the Marshal. Over”  
Burke rolled his eyes.  
  
             “Alright,” Nancy chuckled. “He’s lucky I’m not there. If you get into any trouble you just let me know. Over.”  
  
             “10-4, over and out.” The Sheriff said, ending the call.  
  
             Pratt flicked off the channel and grinned at Hudson. “Maybe we should have brought Nancy instead of the Probie” He said, jerking his thumb back to indicate her. These Peggies wouldn’t fuck with her-”  
  
            “Pratt-”  
  
            “Why do you keep calling them Peggies?” The Marshal said, cutting across Hudson’s half-hearted reprimand. Pratt never really meant harm, he just enjoyed no longer being the lowest rung on the totem pole and giving Molly hell.  
  
             Which didn’t mean she wasn’t thinking about pulling him into a headlock when they landed.  
  
            “Project at Eden’s Gate: P. E. G. Peggies.” Whitehorse explained. “Its what the locals call em. You know, they started off harmless enough a few years ago, and now they’re armed to the teeth. They’re lookin for a fight.”  
  
            Burke frowned. “Are you scared, Sheriff?”  
  
            Molly glared. She could take a lot, but arrogance...a look from the Sheriff silenced her retort.  
  
           “We’re here.” Pratt said. “Compound’s just below.”  
  
           They started to descend. Molly shifted to look out the window again. Two bonfires. Why did these people like burning things so much? She could also make out the dog pens where they kept those mangy timberwolves that they liked to unleash on unsuspecting trespassers. She’d seen enough mauled bodies to last her a lifetime, thanks to those.  
  
            The Marshal looked too and cursed. Hudson sighed. “This is a bad idea...”  
  
            “Last chance, Marshal...” The Sheriff said. Sounding tired and resigned. Like he already knew what the answer was going to be.  
He sighed. Considering, maybe. But finally... “We’re going in.”  
  
            A look of disappointment and maybe a little fear crossed his face, but it vanished quickly. “Set her down, Pratt.”  
  
            “Yeah, Roger that” Pratt confirmed, already in the process of gently coaxing the bird into the one area of the compound not covered in Peggies and shacks.  
  
            She looked around as they landed. The bonfire was being fed by a Peggie with a flamethrower. She’d long since tried keeping their names straight or identities distinct. Their ranks swelled too rapidly. Besides, all Peggies looked alike. A mass of dirty, lost looking people, with overgrown hair and beards and his fuckin iron crosses emblazoned on their clothes. All wore the dirt like a badge of honor and the marks of their Father’s “love” like a lipstick kiss from a saint. They were circling around the landing chopper, confused and tense. Hands on their numerous assault rifles. She doubted the Founding Fathers had seen this as a result when they wrote in that second Amendment. She felt her own pistol weighing at her side. Comforting, yet....looking at the AR-15s in their hands she was beginning to doubt if it would be enough.  
  
            They touched down. As they began unfastening their belts Whitehorse signalled Nancy again. “Dispatch, you still there?”  
  
            “Yes, go ahead Sheriff.”  
  
            He took a breath, steeling himself for the ordeal ahead. “If you don’t hear from us in fifteen minutes send in everyone. Call the guddamn national guard if you have to. Over.” He clicked off the seatbelt.  
  
          “Yessir Sheriff. I’ll be praying for you.”  
  
           Pratt and Hudson killed the engines and the Sheriff shouted to make his voice heard above the blades. “Alright, now listen up, three rules. Stick close, keep your guns in your holster, and let me do the talking, okay? That goes for you too, Rook.” He said, apparently catching her pale expression. She was startled back to attention and nodded.  
She pulled off her own restraints, heart pounding. This was the deepest she’d ever been in Peggie country, and they definitely weren’t going to take well to the fact that they had come to arrest their beloved fucking Father. This would not end well...  
  
            “Got it.”  
  
            “Alright everyone” He looked back at the other two. “Stay sharp. Let’s go!”  
  
            They emerged from the helicopter. The smell of the place nearly knocked her off her feet. Unwashed bodies. Dogs. Rotting meat. And some strange smell that she couldn’t place but she had the sneaking suspicion came from the fire. She just hoped they weren’t burning Bliss. Molly resisted the urge to cover her nose and chose to soldier on like the rest of them. They jogged on ahead and she followed quickly.

              “He’ll be in the church, stick close.” Whitehorse said. Then, his voice dropping to a much quieter tone, he said. “Eyes open. These folks can spook easy.  
She looked around while trying not to gawk. So many people...she hadn’t realized the Peggies had this many in their central base like this...  
They were starting to murmur. Wondering what they were doing here. Had they come to...no...  
  
              “Rook, on me. Stay loose, huh?” Hudson said.  
  
              “Can do” She said, picking up the pace to stick close to her. Hudson hated going behind enemy lines, but was doing her damnedest not to show weakness in front of these lunatics.  
  
             “We done nothing wrong...”  
  
            “Why are they here?”  
  
            “Be calm! Everyone, stay calm.” Whitehorse said, to be heard by the crowd. “Just go about your business. This doesn’t concern you.”  
  
             Didn’t seem to convince them much, but they were closing in on the church now. Molly could make out singing now. Amazing Grace. It was a staple of the cult, getting nearly as much radio play as those hymns they wrote for themselves. Like everything Seed related, the best stuff was what they had stolen from other people.  
  
             “I don’t like this” Hudson muttered as they passed through the white gates.  
  
            “Everything’s fine Hudson. Everything’s just fine...” He didn’t sound to reassured, but he was watching every corner of the compound that he could, trying to make sure no one was going to creep up on them.  
  
             “You’re wearing badges, aren’t you?” Burke said indignantly. Molly’s glare deepened as she glanced back at the big bearded man leaning against the church gates and eyeing them suspiciously.  
  
             “Yeah, but they don’t respect badges much out here...” Hudson said, turning around to look back at the forming mob of people.  
  
             “They’ll respect a nine millimeter”  
  
              “You sure about that?” Molly said quietly, as a man right in front of them swung a rifle with all the idle confidence of someone who wouldn’t hesitate to use it.  
  
             “Not every problem can be solved with a bullet, Marshal...” Whitehorse chastised half-heartedly. The church doors were in sight.  
  
             The dogs were going frantic, tearing at the chainmail in an attempt to get to them, yet somehow she could still make out the singing.

            “Was blind...but now....I see....”  
  
            Whitehorse stopped them at the church doors, which had been heavily graffitid with Seed’s cherry picked Scriptures from every Holy Book he could lay his hands on. She’d seen similar work done by graffitti artists in the town.  
  
            The Marshal made a move to open it, hand on his gun, but the Sheriff stopped him. “Woah, Marshal...Now we do this, we do it my way. Quietly.  
  
            “Fine, you got it” Burke said, clearly impatient. Whether to arrest Seed or just get out of here, she was uncertain.  
  
             “Hudson, on the door. Watch our backs. Don’t let any of these people get in. Križ,” He looked up at her. “On me.”  
  
            She couldn’t help a nervous burst of energy that made her swallow hard, but she nodded, putting her hand not quite on her gun, but within easier reach.  
  
            “I once...was lost, but now...am found”  
  
             “And you, just...try not to do anything stupid.” Whitehorse said, clearly past his patience with him.  
  
            “Relax, Sheriff.” Burke said, patting his shoulder. “You’re about to get your name in the paper.  
  
             Her and Hudson exchanged a barely contained look of disdain.  
  
            The Sheriff looked resigned and slowly pulled open the door.  
  
             “You’ll be fine.” Hudson said, nodded at her reassuringly before both moved to their posts.  
  
             The church was unlit by electricity, the only light coming from a few candles in the front of the room and a single window. It was sweltering hot in there. Joseph Seed was known for preaching for 6 or 8 hours at a time, 6 or 8 hours with dozens of bulky bodies in heavy fatigues heating up the room. She could make out the preacher’s outline on the other end of the room, silhouetted by what little light there was. It smelled like rot in the church.  
  
              “Something is coming.” Joseph’s voice, ever soft and ever distinct, rang out over the singing and silenced it. She felt a chill run up her spine at the sound. He was....he was here. In this room. Drenched in his presence.  
   
              “You can feel it, can’t you? That we are creeping towards the edge...”  
  
              She followed the Sheriff and the Marshall in. A few Peggies standing at the back of the room turned on them, looking flabbergasted by the intrusion into their most sacred of spaces. They walked slowly, the floorboards groaning in protest as they crept onwards.  
  
             “And there will be a reckoning.” His body turned to face them, and though she couldn’t make out his face she saw the light glowing off bare shoulders. He must have stripped his shirt so as not to pass out under the fervor of his own sermons. They drew closer. "That is why we started the Project. Because we know what will happen next. They will come.”  
  
              The Marshal’s hand drifted to his gun, but the Sheriff raised a warning hand to stop him.  
  
              “They will try to take from us. Take our guns. Take our freedom. Take our faith.” Joseph was staring at them now resolutely, and she was beginning to make out features. The beard. The yellow shades. The scarred words, old sins he had carved on his body, along with a couple tattoos. His hair was drawn back in a bun.  
“But we will not let them” Joseph said, a slightly more aggressive tone to his voice as they drew closer and more of his followers got to their feet. In the shadows she could see John Seed, whose face she recognized from all the television spots. There was a hulking ginger man watching them from the shadows who seemed remarkably unperturbed. His face rang a bell, and she suddenly thought back to the dossier. Was this Jacob?  
  
                “Sheriff, c’mon-”  
  
               “Just hold on Marshal” He said, clearly reluctant to provoke anyone in the room.  
  
               “We will not let their greed, or their immorality, or their depravity hurt us anymore!” Joseph’s voice rose in intensity and power. He looked between all of them and she couldn’t help but feel her heart pounding. He was here, right in front of her. The monster that had been terrorizing the county for years. His body and voice both spoke of a lean and deadly power, tightly contained, but always present.  
  
               “Sheriff-”  
  
              “Do not pull that trigger, remain-”  
  
              “There will be no more suffering!”  
  
              “Ah, fuck this.” The Marshal said, fed up. He withdrew the warrant and flashed it in front of the preacher’s face. “Joseph Seed! I have a warrant issued for your arrest on the suspicion of kidnapping with the intent to harm. Now I want you to step forward and keep your hands where I can see them”  
  
              She felt everyone in the room bristle and tense, and she watched Seed intently, trying to be ready for whatever his move might be...  
  
             He seemed...She wasn’t sure what that expression was. Amused but...there was rage behind it. He raised his hands, palms out, revealing nothing but the rosary woven around his hand and through his fingers. Then he began to speak and she realized he wasn’t surrendering. He was gesturing.  
  
           “There they are. The Locusts in our Garden.” The Peggies rose up and began to filter in between them and the Father, anger rising on their faces as they began to understand why these intruders were here. “You see they’ve come for me. They’ve come to take me away from you. They’ve come,” As his voice rose in pitch so did the anger of his parishioners and they began to press in closer. “To destroy all that we’ve built!”  
  
             They forced them back a step and Burke put his hand to his gun. “Alright, everyone-”  
  
             “Do not touch that service weapon!” Whitehorse said, aggressively gesturing for him to move his hand away and for the other to back off. “Hold on and stand down. Stand down!” He was addressing the crowd now. “Everyone calm down!”  
  
              She began looking for weak points, escape routes, wishing they had brought a larger force. If even one of these cultists got trigger happy...  
  
              Joseph walked down among them and they parted like the Red Sea for Moses, calming as soon as he touched two of them on the shoulder and shared that conspiratorial gaze that had made him so compelling to so many. In the background John loomed like a shadow, watching events transpire and clearly trying to assess what his role must be.  
  
            “We knew this moment would come.” Joseph said “We have prepared for it.” His voice was almost...heartbreakingly gentle. Like a father trying to soothe a frightened child. The Peggies were hanging on his every word and even the Marshal seemed bewildered. Molly found herself unable to tear her eyes away and shook her head. Something about the air in the church....she felt strange.  
  
           “Go.” He urged quietly. Then glancing around at his followers, he repeated the command. Reluctantly, they began to filter out of the church, brushing so close to her they left dirt on her uniform and eyeing her with contempt. She was a bit relieved to see them go, but....what was happening? Had he known he was to be arrested? With the amount of a hold the Seed family had it wasn’t a total shock that he might have gotten that information, but to think he might have a mole in the station...  
  
           “God will not let them take me.”  
  
           The other Seeds began gathering on the small stage. Not aggressive, or looking like they were preparing to fight. Only Faith seemed even slightly unsure, and based on all Molly had heard the girl would not act without the others. Joseph raised his arms high in the air, casting his gaze towards the heavens and she fought her way back to the front through the press of the church exodus.  
  
          “I saw when the Lamb opened the first seal, and I heard,” He said, gazing up at heaven with those blazing eyes like he would bore a hole through the ceiling. Molly felt more and more unnerved. He was...far too calm. Why wasn’t he fighting? “As it were the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts say, come and see.”  
  
          The Marshal looked between the Sheriff and Joseph, clearly at a loss. “Step. Forward.”  
  
          “And I saw” He said, returning his gaze to the earth, stepping towards Burke with an angry gaze. “And behold...” His gaze swivelled to the Sheriff. “It was a white horse.”  
Finally....his gaze turned to her. And his voice became...much softer. “And Hell followed with him.” His gaze was more hypnotic than the footage and the ads could ever indicate, and for a moment she was grateful for the sunglasses that must mask some of it. For an insane half moment she wondered what she would have done if it had just been his eyes on her.  
  
          He slowly extended his hands without breaking eye contact, and it was hard to tell whether he was surrendering, or....beckoning to her. His hands were open, and though to coax her closer, and she felt...drawn. Like when you see an edge and can’t help but feel the urge to walk towards it and peer into the abyss it overhangs. But the abyss was in his eyes, and she was staring right into their cold depths.  
  
         “Rookie” The Marshal said, cutting through it. “Cuff this son of a bitch.”  
  
          She blinked and nodded, stepping closer and pulling her cuffs off her belt. She found herself locked in the tractor beam of that intense stare once more, and she froze again.  
  
          “God will not let you take me.”  
  
          He said it with the surety some men might describe the sunrise. And for a moment...she almost believed him. But in the end, she had a job to do. She forced herself out of it, and snapped the cuffs around his wrists. He did not once break the stare the entire time that she fitted them. When she had locked them into place, she heard him murmur, so quiet she wasn’t sure it was real.  
  
          “Sometimes the best thing to do is leave well enough alone.”

* * *

  
          Next thing she knew they were outside, steering him towards the ship. The Peggies were riled, yelling about how they couldn’t take the father. Threatening them. She picked up the pace, praying they could make it back in before somewhat thought to turn the dogs loose.  
  
          She kept a hand on Joseph’s shoulder, steering him through the crowd while the others tried to keep the Peggies at bay. Under the sweat she could still smell remnants of some kind of cologne. He was one of the only clean things in this place, untouched by the grime and stench around him. Untouched by anything, it seemed. He marched at the pace she enforced, unresisting and steady, eyes locked ahead, apparently blind to the chaos that was erupting around them.  
  
           And oh, erupt it did. The Peggies were growing wild. They gripped their guns tighter and yelled incoherent angry words. Many of them looked desperately at Seed as they passed, as though expecting him to command an attack. Unwilling, or perhaps unable, to believe that it was over, that the Father was going peacefully to his arrest.  
  
          They kept walking at a good clip towards the helicopter, and the closer they got the more riled the crowd became. Yelling, gesturing. Burke, Hudson, and Whitehorse were shouting, pushing people away. Someone grabbed at Molly’s arm in passing. She lunged forward instinctively, pushing Joseph with her, and slipped free. There were screams, howls of the dogs. Finally, they started hurling stones. Hudson came back and grabbed Joseph’s other arm, rushing them towards the chopper. Molly pushed him inside, sandwiching him between her and Hudson. The Sheriff started yelling for Pratt to fire up the copter, climbing in the copilot’s seat while Burke fought his way through the crowd, clambering into his seat and yelling for them to take off.  
  
          The blades started to whirl, but the cultists were relentless, getting in the doors and grasping for them. Whitehorse was screaming something, but Molly was too engaged with wrestlings desperate Peggies away from Seed. One of them clocked her in the eye so hard her head rang. The doors were ripped away, and as they began to rise she heard a couple of shots being fired.  
  
        Oh gods oh gods oh gods- They were clinging to the damn helicopter! Grabbing her, trying to yank her out, and she swore, striking and trying to knock them off. Burke fired his gun at one of them. Joseph Seed started singing again while his followers threw themselves at him, the chopper teetering and shaking under the weight shifts. Sheriff was shouting for him to shut up, Pratt said something unintelligible, and the last thing she saw properly was a bright light among the hordes of cultist, followed by a rocket....  
They were over the treeline at that point when it hit the rotor. Pratt swore and tried to jerk the controls in line, but it was too late. They were in tailspin, and they all realized it. Burke clung to the seat, chanting “oh God” like He might reach down and catch them. Molly closed her eyes tight, preparing for impact, for death, for nothing for-  
They crashed.

* * *

   
        When she woke up everything ached. Her head felt like it had been hit with a cement block. Twice. Her shoulder stung and was probably bleeding, and her vision swam before her and she tried to orient herself to the sights, her eyes cracking open. One of them was already swelling shut, the one the Peggie had struck.  
   
        Burke’s hands were raised above his head like a man on a roller coaster and there was a faint crackling noise and something that sounded like a voice. Slowly but surely she began to make out everything around her.  
  
        Based on the position of their arms and the tight feeling in her head, they’d landed upside down. She couldn’t see if Pratt or Whitehorse were still there. Dead maybe....Burke appeared to just be unconscious. Hudson was definitely breathing too, even more battered than Molly felt, but clinging to life.  
  
        “Please, are you there? Are you there?!”  
  
        She turned her head towards the sound. A headset, dangling a few feet away from her, and Nancy’s voice ringing out from the headphones. Must’ve gotten jarred loose when-...  
  
         Seed.  
  
         He was gone.  
  
         Panic and adrenaline seized over her, and for a split second she wanted to vomit. Maybe that was just the concussion talking. In any case she quickly recovered. They were still deep in Peggie turf, and even if Joseph had crawled away somehow chances are they’d still be coming for them.  
  
       “Sheriff?.....Deputy Hudson, if you’re there, please pick up!”

_“Amazing grace....how sweet the sound...”_  
  
        Her mouth went dry and she looked around wildly, vision blurring as she moved her head too quickly. No....no, there was no way....Desperately she reached out her hand, fighting against gravity and her restraints, gasping in pain around aching ribs as she tried to reach the headset-  
  
       “Deputy Pratt, are you there? Are you there?!”  
  
       Her hand finally caught it and another hand enclosed her wrist painfully tight.  
  
       Seed. Right in front of her. Apparently unscathed and staring at her with a blank expression. Holding her wrist tight so she couldn’t move, but she was too stunned to even try.  
  
       “Earl, are you there, over?”  
  
       “ _That saved_....” He was still murmuring the lyrics, lips twitching slightly as he examined her. Like she was a mouse, and he was the well-fed cat deciding whether or not she’d be worth taking a bite out of.  
  
      “Are you there? Is somebody there? Please!”  
  
      “ _Like me.._.” His voice was almost a whisper and he was so, so close. Come on, do something, hit him, anything! But he had her good arm in a tight grip, and she found she couldn’t even muster the courage to speak. She was going to die. She and everyone here were going to die. Painfully. Slowly. She’d seen the mutilated corpses of those they took a disliking too, and she was pretty sure they topped the list. His eyes were locked on hers and it was like she could feel the knives and blows already.  
  
       Right now it was all she could do not to burst into tears.  
  
       He let go of her wrist and it fell limply back into that ridiculous position. His hand moved closer, and she cringed away. The man had a history with eyes...but instead he tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ears. Expression unreadable. His fingertips left ashy streaks on her cheeks and somehow the tenderness of the gesture only made her feel more afraid.  
  
       “I told you,” He said quietly. “That God wouldn’t let you take me”  
  
        She was going to scream if he didn’t back off, and in a wild moment she nearly bit his hand. He seemed to read that intention in her eyes and pulled his hand back. That same maddeningly blank expression on his face.  
  
       “Please...” Nancy sounded like she was about to cry. “I...I need to know what’s going on.”  
  
       Joseph looked back at the headset and drew it towards him. Looking back at Molly as he brought the mic near his mouth. All she could do was watch. The pain was setting in more and shock was fading away, and she just wanted to pass out. She fought hard for consciousness.  
  
       “Dispatch”  
  
       “Oh my gods,” Nancy said, voice a shocked whisper. Molly thought about screaming for help, just to at least let her know one of them was still alive, but her mouth felt like cotton and she couldn’t do it.  
  
        For a moment his mouth twitched in what was almost an amused smile. “Everything is just fine here. No need to call anyone.”  
  
        There was a pause. What was he..  
  
        “Yes, Father. Praise be to you.”  
  
        Her eyes went wide and if her blood hadn’t currently been rushing to her head she would’ve gone pale. No...Nancy was...?  
  
        Joseph let go of the headset, letting it swing away. He leaned in, so close she could smell the ashes and dirt off his face and breath. His eyes traced her face in a way that made her skin crawl.  
  
       “No one is coming to save you” He whispered.  
  
        And in that moment....she knew he was right.  
  
        No one would. They were....all alone.  
  
       Maybe they always had been. Maybe this valley had always been meant for these crazy fuckin lunatics. Maybe Joseph really did have God’s protection, and she was just one of the hubris filled idiots who hadn’t figured it out in time.  
  
      She was going to die.  
  
      Joseph looked outside and crawled out the side, stepping nimbly between some lowburning flames that licked the sides of the copter. A truck with a couple relieved Peggies on it had somehow driven up without her noticing. Fuck, she really was out of it....her head was pounding. She could see Hudson starting to stir, blinking blearily as she opened her eyes.  
  
      “Father!” one cried out, helping Joseph to his feet “God has kept you under the shadow of his wings!”  
  
      Joseph put his hands on the shoulders of a couple of them, speaking in a low and excited tone. “Everything is unfolding according to God’s plan. I am still here with you.” He pushed off of them to step on the cab of the truck. Hudson groaned.  
  
      She turned her head to look. Burke was starting to wake up to, grunting painfully as his brain took stock of his various injuries. She tried to find the will to move her hands, tug on the seatbelt, speak, do something, but the fear had been replaced by a resigned horror. Pain was coming, so, so much pain...  
  
      “The first Seal has been broken” Joseph said, addressing a small crowd of his cultists. “The Collapse has begun. And we will take what we need.”  
   
      Hudson was looking around, giving her a confused look as she tried to make sense of what was happening.  
  
      “And we will preserve what we have. And we will kill all those who stand in our way.”  
  
       Both of them started looking around, assessing their situation. Molly could barely tear her eyes away from Seed, please, fuck somebody get them out of this...  
“And these...” He pointed at them now. “The harbingers of doom will see the truth.”  
  
       "We gotta get out of here...we gotta get out here...” Burke said, shaking his head as though to clear it.  
  
       “BEGIN THE REAPING!”  
  
       Burke and Hudson began trying to free themselves as the Peggies approached. Two of them ripped the doors off and started pulling out Pratt. Hudson wrestled against those closest to her and Molly watched, powerless as they cut her loose and dragged her away.  
  
     “GET THE FUCK OFF ME!” She screamed, thrashing as hard as she could but limited by her injuries.  
  
      Panic started to seize over her and she found the energy to start struggling again. A couple came back for her and Burke but the flames around the chopper flared up, pushing them back.  
  
       The only coherent thought she had as she scrambled to get a grip on the buckle was I will be damned if I go through all this and its the fucking chopper that kills me.  
  
       “Let them burn! This is God’s will. This is their punishment.” She could somehow still hear Joseph over the roar of the blaze.  
  
        Burke got free before her and took off running into the night.  
  
        Molly took one last look at what little she could see of the others through the blaze. Mostly it was Seed, standing above the rest, a cold smile on his face. The victory was already his, as far as he was concerned. A man of God, convinced he had a winning hand.  
  
        Her gaze hardened.  
  
        Fuck. That.  
  
        The pain ebbed into the background and she managed to break free. She fell hard on the chopper roof, but recovered quickly, scrambling out of the burning wreck and running as fast as her legs could carry her.  
  
       “H-hey! They’re getting away!”  
  
        A bullet clipped near her head, but she didn’t so much as stumble, just ran, and ran, and ran, all the while Seed’s face and voice ringing in her head, accompanied by a burning rage that rested somewhere low in her belly...


	2. Below

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Flash forward. I'm planning for this to have a bit of a back and forth structure

“God be in my head and in my understanding.”

The cold cement bit into her knees, already sore from untold hours in this position over the past few weeks. Her head was bent and her hands were folded as best they could around the cuffs. Molly’s eyes were aching to roll, but she needed a shower so bad her skin itched, and the only way to earn it was to sound properly devout.

“God be in my eyes and in my looking.”

Out of the corner of her eyes she could see the toes of Seed’s boots. He sat a few feet away from her, expression unreadable. Watching. Assessing. Meditating maybe.

“God be in my...my...”

“Mouth” He said. Voice patient. For now. But the dark bruises along her arms told how soon that patience could evaporate.

“God be in my mouth and in my speaking.”

The bruises weren’t the only wounds she had collected. Her broken leg was still healing. Deep cuts from broken glass. Her wrists were rubbed raw from her bindings.

“God be in my heart and in my thinking.”

Not to mention the low, still burning pain on her lower abdomen..

“God be at my end and my departing.” She finished. Then settled back into her kneeling position. Head still bent. Not daring to look over at him, not until he said.

A moment of silence while he considered. Then he got to his feet and crouched in front of her, unlocking the cuffs. Seed’s movements had always reminded her of a cat’s. Sleek and graceful, but slow. The ties came loose and she wanted to groan in relief. The cutting metal was replaced by his hands, gripping hers tightly, and he moved to look deeper into her eyes.

“I’ll give you thirty minutes. No more, no less. And leave the door unlocked.” He said. Softly. So terribly softly. She almost wished sometimes that he would just yell at her. Anything would be better than this unbearable murmuring, forcing her to hang off his lips and catch every word.

“Yes, Father.” The words sprang to her mouth automatically by now, no matter how sick to her stomach it made her. 

He pulled her to her feet, drawing a sharp hiss of air out of her as her thighs screamed, after so long in position. Seed didn’t react, just led her to the bathrooms and stepped aside to let her in.

The shower was a bare bones military affair, just a steel spigot in a concrete stall with a drain. No curtain, Joseph had removed it early on. No razors either. Or any kind of toxic chemicals. Just a bar of soap.

He’d learned his lesson well after the first attempt. Couldn’t risk losing the last lamb in his flock.

At least by now he granted her the privacy of not standing in the room. Seed never tried anything, but she hated the way his eyes felt on her. The anger that still smoldered underneath that endless silence made her feel at his mercy, a feeling the vulnerable nakedness did not abet.

She stripped her clothes. These would have to be burned soon, they were the same she’d been wearing since....since the Day, and they looked it. The pants were worn away at the knee and absolutely filthy, while the bottom half of the top was torn clean away. As an afterthought she brought the clothes into the shower with her. Maybe it would rinse off the worst of the bacteria. 

Finally, she peeled away the bandages around her abdomen. Her wound was closed enough that she felt ready to wash it, at least a little.

She turned on the water, waiting a minute until it warmed up about as much as it ever would, and stepped in, hissing slightly as it hit the angry red marks on her stomach. 

P-r-i-d-e.

It was carved in thin scars between her hips, matching where the F-...Seed had his own Lust scar. 

He’d done that a couple days after the Day. Laying her flat on her back on the bed, while she slept, binding her arms and legs with the bedsheets and his belt, and drawing out Dutch’s Bowie knife.

She’d woken up to the tip carving into her skin.

She’d screamed, only to be silenced by him pushing his rosary into her mouth. 

“Shh...” His fingertips traced her cheek as tears streamed down the sides, not wiping them away, only mirroring their path. The expression on his face seemed to echo a father hushing his child while they get a splinter removed. “It is necessary, my daughter. This will help you.” 

Molly whimpered behind the gag, shaking her head and struggling fruitlessly to get loose. Nothing. He tucked her hair behind her ear and resumed carving his Judgement into her flesh. 

It took nearly an hour, with all her squirming he had to be careful, but in the end it was on her skin. He had daubed away the blood, gently, speaking words she could barely make out, exhausted and in agony.

The scars were still a vivid red on her stomach. Joseph was not like John. His goal was not confession, he would not peel this off her. Instead, it was training. She would learn under him, and the hope was that at the scars faded, so would her desire to sin. Still, the reminders would remain. The F-.....Seed’s scars were still there. As a testament to temptation. While one walked this earth one was never truly free of the desire to sin. But you could grow. These scars would mark where she had came from, and wherever she went, she would carry their weight with her.

Fuck, he was even starting to affect her thought patterns.

She shook her head and started soaping down her body. She couldn’t let herself fall that far. She didn’t dare, and yet....part of her wondered what she was holding out for.  
Back when she was sixteen, flipping burgers for a living and still in her pretentious poetry phase, she had this mantra she would repeat internally whenever a shift felt like it would never end. Always remember time is composed of a finite number of hours. Bleak? Yes. Over-the-top? Yeah. But it had helped, in a weird way. It was a reminder that however long the shift spread out before her, there would eventually come a time when it would end. There would inevitably be a point in the future where she was no longer working, and could go home. As the years went by she had used it whenever she was going through hard times. She remembered it floating through her head while strapped to Jacob’s chair, and while she couldn’t prove that it was what let her hang on to the last threads of sanity, she chose to believe it did.

But this? This was different.

She was never getting out of this.

If she escaped, she’d just die. In one of the slowest and most horrible ways possible. 

If she didn’t manage it, he’d become even harder on her. She’d lose what little freedom she had.

She’d tried offing herself. Hadn’t worked, and if she was honest, she didn’t really have the will to try. Maybe it was cowardice. The Fath-....Seed had been right about too much so far. She wasn’t sure that she’d be brave enough to see if he was right about whatever awaited after death. 

If she killed him....

Well, she’d see. The time wasn’t right, not yet. She’d have to get him to trust her enough to let her walk around without cuffs.

There was a slight warning knock on the door. She quickly rinsed off and started towelling off as fast as she could. He opened it just as she was pulling on her last scrap of clothing.

He approached and locked the cuffs back into place. “Feel better?”

She nodded. After so many weeks of this, she knew silence would not be rewarded. Seed expected answers when he asked questions.

“Good.” He let go of her hands and ran his fingertips over the letters on her chest. She tried to hold back a wince. It was still tender.

“This is closing up nicely.” He mused. “I was concerned about the possibility of infection, but it seems your friend took the time to sanitize his equipment”

The inference to Dutch made bile rise in her throat and her vision swim, but she blinked a few times, refusing to react. There would be time for vengeance later.

“And your leg?”

“....Sore.” She said. “But I can put some weight on it.”

“Good...good..” He nodded. “Better for my purposes, perhaps...”

She didn’t like the sound of that.

He withdrew his hand and looked up at her. “Another forty five minutes of penance, I think, and then rest. You’ll need some strength for tomorrow.”

“What’s happening-”

“Its time to deprogram you.” He said, cutting across her neatly. 

Her confusion must have seemed evident, because he continued.

“My brother Jacob...” There was a faint and dangerous edge to his voice, as there always was when he had to speak of his siblings in the past tense. “His methods were effective for the time, I suppose. But the rage that he planted in your head is no longer useful to me, nor beneficial to either of us.” 

He took her head between her hands, making her shudder involuntarily. Joseph chose to ignore this. 

“I can’t have you trying to use it against me. I’ve found the record he used to condition you. I will bind you to the bed and play the song until you cease to struggle. With any luck, enough of this will break through the response.

Her eyes widened and she could feel the blood drain from her face. No...no, she remembered how it felt. The rage, the overwhelming fear...even if she wasn’t capable of harming anyone, it was still-

He seemed to sense her anxiety and pressed his forehead to hers. Molly’s breath hitched and she couldn’t help but look in his eyes. 

“This is necessary, my daughter.” He said quietly. “But you will come through purified. God will recognize your sufferings, and will reward you, if you bear up under it. I will take care that you cannot hurt yourself.”

Her eyes swam. Perhaps he thought it was from devoutness, but it was from....terror. Still, what could she do but nod mutely, accept it like the good sheep she was becoming?

He nodded and led her back to the bed, gently pushing her into a kneeling position and hooking the cuffs around the post again. Taking his seat, he gestured for her to continue. 

Molly clasped her hands together to keep them from trembling and closed her eyes. Tears burned behind them, but her voice was steady.

“God be in my head and in my understanding. God be in my eyes and in my looking...”


	3. Wrath, Pt 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finally got a direction for this, so heeeere we go.

Psalms 37: 8-9

Cease from anger, and forsake wrath: fret not thyself in any wise to do evil. For evildoers shall be cut off: but those that wait upon the Lord, they shall inherit the earth.

“College?”

“Pfft, yeah” Jess snorted. She was sharpening arrow tips, a task not recommended in a truck bumping its way down dirt roads. Then again, Jess didn’t much care what was recommended. “Like I can afford that shit”

“They have scholarships”

“Never finished high school. Not much for book learnin”

Molly pulled off the road, cutting the car through some fields. The farm had long since been abandoned, no danger of running down some hapless farmer. Or their crops, for that matter.

“Uh, alright, school not a good fit. Military maybe?”

The young woman shrugged, tucking her arrows back into their quiver. “Thought about it. Dutch has been recruitin since I was in diapers, and there are a lot of veterans out here.”

“Might be a good fit.” Molly said. Scanning the road for stray explosives in what had become routine. Strange what the mind can adjust to.

“Dunno if I want that. Seen what its done to people ‘round here?” Jess leaned back in the car seat, ticking them off on her fingers. “Grace was pretty much a hermit before all this went down. Dutch....well, the survivalist shit ended up comin in handy, as it turned out, but before that he was just some paranoid old dude with a bunker who jumped when things moved too fast. Same with Eli and Bo. Tammy still has nightmares. That preacher out in Holland is the only one I’ve met who seems halfway okay. And I don’t got a God to fall back on.”

There was one Hope County veteran left out of that lineup, but....they didn’t need to talk about him.

“Still, after all you’ve been through out here....doubt there’s much out there that could fuck you up”  
“.....army’s a lot of rules. Lot of regulations.” She pulled a knife out of her belt and examined the edge. “Gotten to used to being on my own. Probably tell my C.O. to go fuck himself or something.”

Molly chuckled. “They probably frown on that”

“Yeah. Probably.”

“Still....” Molly pulled her shades down to block out the sunlight that glared in her face. “....some day this is gonna be over, and...you gotta have at least some idea what you’re gonna do after, right?”

Jess was silent for a while. “.....yeah. If I live that long.”

“Jess-”

“Hey, I’m kiddin” She punched the deputy’s shoulder. “Dont start pullin motherly shit on me, you sound like Kim”

She grunted, rubbing her shoulder. “Hey, someone has to watch your ass”

“Yeah, if its all the same, I’d rather the person watching my ass be able to watch their own”

“Hey!”

“Don’t hey me, lil miss ‘couldn’t see a grenade if I shit it out’”

Molly rolled her eyes. “I’m gonna turn up the radio to drown out the asshole if that’s cool”

“Just s’long as it ain’t the hymns”

She flipped it on. Hope County didn’t have a lot of radio stations, but there was usually something...

She had been careless. It was a good day. No calls for help, no one dead today that she knew. The sun was warm, they had a six pack of cold beer in the back, and they were heading to Sharky’s to plan the next outpost raid. And like an idiot she’d let her guard down. If only for a second.

A second that lasted long enough that she didn’t recognize the opening notes until the the red started to creep into the edges of her vision.  
As the trumpets started to rise in volume, she slammed the brakes the so hard Jess was flung forward. No seatbelt.

“Dude, what the fuck?!”

Molly was shaking, fighting for control, clutching the steering wheel so hard the foam was tearing. “Jess, get out of the car.” Her voice was tight and cracked, her teeth starting to grind as rage boiled up. 

“Wha-

“GET THE FUCK OUT!” She screamed, closing her eyes and trying to block out the sound. 

Jess didn’t need to be told again, at this point she knew that when Molly screamed, shit had just gotten real. With the last bit of control, Molly turned on the child-proof locks.

“Only youu....”

The rage boiled higher and higher. She was seething, raw anger spilling out in every direction. Suddenly there was no room for coherent thought, just sheer destructiveness. 

Maim

Tear

Destroy

Devour

Her fists started to strike against the windows, pounding, cracking them. Her voice was incoherent snarls and her eyes were searching wildly for life..

“Can thrill me like this....”

There. Small rabbit. Tiny. Unworthy prey, but fuck she needed to squeeze the life out of it now. She shattered through the window. Heedless of the blood dripping down her fists, she opened the door and climbed out of the car, dropping to the ground.

“When you hold my hand!”

The rabbit ran. But she was faster. She was stronger. Soon she held it in her hands, eyes wild-

That was the last semi conscious thought. She came too as the last notes of the song rang out. Heart pounding. Chest heaving.

Hands bloody.

There was a low chuckle from the radio that she could faintly hear. Low...and familiar.

“Here’s hoping you heard that. Well, I’m hoping at least. Whoever you were with just now....may have had other opinions.

“A little reminder for you, pup. Still the top of the pack. You just have to accept it.

“We’ll be coming for you soon.”

After that, static.

Molly lay on the ground, staring up at the sky, trying to catch her breath. She felt like she had been running miles. The adrenaline still burned through her veins, and she still felt that tightness in her chest that made her....want to hurt something.

“Psst”

Her hand darted to her gun instinctually as her head whipped around, but she sighed in exhausted relief. “Jess, you scared the shit out of me”

“I scared the shit out of you?!” She emerged from the trees, looking bewildered, and more than a little freaked out. “What the fuck was that!?!”

“Little....little gift from Jacob...” She sat up a bit, groaning. “What did I....”

“You fuckin decimated that bunny. I’ve seen rabid dogs go easier on prey.”

Molly saw bloody bits lying all around her on the ground and swallowed hard. “Fuck....”

“Is this....Tammy told me something about conditioning...is this what that is...?”  
She nodded. “Its....pretty damn unpleasant, yeah. Every time I resurface I....I have to worry about who....”  
Her voice died off.

“....you don’t gotta talk about it if you don’t want.”

“...do me a favor.” She shifted a bit and leaned against the tire, taking a breath and relaxing. “Radio Sharky and tell him we’re gonna be late. I....need a minute.”


	4. Wrath, Pt 2

“Only youuuuu”

Joseph watched passively as the Deputy thrashed on the bed, snarling like a wild animal and clawing at the sheets. It was a sight he had grown used to. They had done this many times before the Collapse. When members of Jacob’s militia needed to be transferred to other parts of the Project, they found it was useful to deprogram the triggers for the safety of the rest of the flock. It usually didn’t take more than a few hours, but it seemed that the Deputy was stubborn. As always.

In a way he loved their resilience. Such a spirit was not easily broken, but once given to God....there would be no limits to what they could do for the Project, once they re-emerged. 

And in another way, a more sinful way, perhaps.....he loved watching them squirm.

Yes, there was vengeance in his heart. Righteous, perhaps, but to enjoy its fulfillment was certainly a sin. One he must atone for, surely.

His heart burned for his siblings, it was true. Some nights the mere fact that she should continue to breathe while his family had died at her feet would overcome him. And he would want to hurt her. Well past the limits of confession. He wanted to choke her. Slice her open in the way he’d seen John do to the Unrepentant. Let her feel the hurt and the pain that his siblings had at their last moment. The fear. He would approach her while she slept, hands raised.....and then he would still. And stay still for hours. The Voice had long since abandoned him, but he felt its guidance every day. And it was its influence that stayed his hand. Again and again. Knowing that without her he would truly have failed in his mission.

But the Deputy would help him with that. While he might shepherd her, the truth was they were both sheep in God’s flock, and could learn from each other

He would cleanse her from sin. And she, in turn, would purify him. Together, they would both exit this bunker and, eventually, enter the gates of Eden. 

As the hours ticked on her struggles grew weaker and weaker. She was drenched in sweat and murmuring. Mostly gibberish, but he could occasionally make out names. At first, he dismissed it as the rambles of an exhausted mind. But his ears perked up when he heard the name “Eli”. 

He leaned forward. 

He would hear her confession.

And slowly the names and the places were whispered into that still, dark room...

 

\-------------------------------------------------

“You sure about this, Dep?” Hurk whispered. Well, stage-whispered, but they were far enough away that the Peggies couldn’t hear.

“C’mon, Hurk, what’s that thing you’re always sayin, just crazy enough to work?”

“We’re takin advice from Hurk now?” Jess muttered. “No wonder I wanna kill myself right now”

“Hey, hombre, I know what I said, but uh, ya know, just doesn’t seem very much....your style?” He said, clearly searching for words. “I mean, this kinda Hulked out, pissed and frothin deal seems like it could get kinda dangerous, ya feel me?”

“All three of us know that this outpost is too big and too well fortified for us to do out normal schtick.”

“So let’s get some Whitetails, mount up some help and try that. You don’t have to do this!” Jess insisted. She looked pissed.

“....Listen, it's not just about....” She sighed. “Look, you know I hate doin this, but this is an order. Both of you clear out and tell Wheaty to boot up those speakers. Once you stop hearing gunshots and screams, turn off the song and wait to see if I come out.”

“And if you don't?”

“Get ready for a fuckton of pissed off Peggies to come lookin for you.”

“......well guddamn, Dep, you’re just a big ol barrel of laughs tonight,” Hurk mumbled, disappearing into the bushes with a final glance backward.

Molly turned to face Jess, who had a stubborn look on her face. “Jess, seriously, clear out.”

“What’s this really about? This isn’t like you”

“It's not about anything”

“Kriz-”

“I’m sick of it, alright?!” She snapped. “I’m Jacob Seed’s damn timebomb, sitting and waiting for him to trip the fuse any time he pleases. I wanna see how he feels when his grenade gets hurled back in the face of a couple of his Chosen. He can get in my head but he can’t close the door he’s opened. Not.....not without me getting him back.”

Jess was quiet.

“.....you can’t tell me they don’t deserve it. Every single one of these bastards is just a wannabe Jacob. One of those fuckers that’s been....been torturing Pratt. Or...a new Cook-”

“Don't,” Jess said in a tense voice, face twisting harshly.

“.....I’m sorry. But...I have to do this.”

Jess examined her face for a moment and then sighed. “Look, I’m not exactly lookin for humane treatment for these bastards. They definitely deserve anything you can dish out. But....I’ve seen how you get like this. You go into a place in your head that....scares the shit out of m-....people. And if you don’t have a handle on it....maybe you don’t come back.”

“Hey.” She put a hand on Jess’ shoulder, attempting a brave smile. “I’ll come back. Promise.”

The young woman held eye contact, examining her. “....give em hell, Dep.”

She smiled and patted her shoulder. “Nothin else to give.”

Jess gave a slight smile and jogged off into the bushes. Vanishing into the woods. 

Molly took a deep breath and turned back towards the outpost. 

She was burning before the song even started. It had been a rough couple weeks. Jacob’s hunting parties had picked her up again, and seeing for the first time what they had done to Pratt...

There was nothing left of the man who used to tease her. Who used to swap the sugar for salt by the coffee stand and slip ice cubes down her and Hudson’s back on hot days. Nothing left of the lively, but ultimately gentle soul that had given her a few remedies for poison ivy, who she’d caught tucking Hudson in a blanket after a long shift. 

He’d been hollow when she saw him. Shattered and jumping and anxious. And angry. Even if she got him back from Jacob she wasn’t sure that he’d ever be the same.

Jacob had taken that from them. So she’d decided it was time to take something back.

The speakers surrounded the camps. Joseph used them to broadcast his sermons when the spirit moved him. There was really no getting away from the sound. 

“Only youuu”

She’s was not unconquerable in the rage. Someone with enough strength could have still overcome her, wrestled her to the ground and ended it.

But she was stronger. She was faster. She was angrier

She collapsed to her knees, the song still echoing in her eardrums, but there was nothing left to cull. Blood spattered her clothes and skin, mangled corpses littering the grounds. The smell of gunsmoke and hints of Bliss heavy in the air. 

Maybe some of these Peggies were somebody’s Pratt. Somebody’s bright spot. Somebody’s best friend, brother, sister, mother, father, lover. Maybe someone would still be waiting for them when this was all over. 

But she’d beaten them, broken their bodies open over the Montana dirt and spilled out the insides. It meant that like Pratt, they were too weak to remain unbroken.

And after all, Jacob, she thought, as she sank into an endless darkness, her body pitching forward in exhaustion. 

We know what happens to the weak.


	5. Unwrapping

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oof, been a while, huh? this chapter's been stewing for a bit, hope its worth the wait. 
> 
> This is honestly feeding into my personal desire to debate theology with the Father but what else is fanfiction for

She spent two days in the fog. By the end of it she felt like the song had worn paths in her brain deep as trenches. But over time her body stopped responding to it. She simply couldn’t keep up: Jacob’s conditioning demanded violent action from her, but struggle though she might, her body was immobile. She was forced to relax, and simply listen. Until the instinct broke down. And suddenly it was....just noise.

Joseph let her stew for a few more hours, wanting to be certain it wasn’t simply exhaustion keeping her still. Finally, he leaned over her, examining her face.

“Deputy?”

She blinked a few times, too tired to respond verbally. Her wrists were bleeding from the repeated strain but she was long past caring.

“Molly, can you hear me?”

She hated how her name sounded in his mouth....She gave a fractional nod.

“If I unlock the chains, will I be able to trust you?”

Yes, yes, fuck yes, anything to get him to turn the damn song off and let her arms relax from this position. Her shoulders were in so much pain that it was spreading down her back.

Joseph unlocked the handcuffs and took her hands in his own, slowly helping her lower them. Molly drew in a sharp breath and cried out, but eventually she relaxed, tension unknotting in her torso as she went limp against the mattress.

Seed examined her wrists and disappeared for a moment, coming back with cotton swabs, disinfectant, and some bandages. He took one hands and slowly began to clean the cuts.

The disinfectant would have stung under normal circumstances, but her hands felt numb. She focused her energy on trying to flex her fingers a bit. No meager feat.

The past few months, she’d become used to Joseph being close. This wasn’t to say that she liked it. She’d give anything for just an hour alone in a room, without his unblinking eyes studying her every fidget. But she’d adapted to it. The man lacked all sense of personal boundaries. When he wanted to touch her, he would do it. Hold her face or her hands. Clasp her shoulders. Rearrange her body when he wanted her to move. Hell, she was certain the man had considered them sharing a bunk if it didn’t border on something inappropriate to his Luddite tendencies. All this with the same unreadable expression. It was not affection, or even desire to make her off-balance. Just something he did.

Molly wasn’t a person who was generally comfortable with touch. A half-assed one arm hug was usually her max. There were some exceptions: Sharky was (had been) exuberant in a way that was kind of contagious, and she had fond memories of wrestling him for the remote on the rare off nights they got. Boomer she would happily cuddle with until forcibly ripped away. But for most people it was stiff, awkward. Too many people smells, too much strange electricity and emotions and uncomfortableness.

....The Father was different. It was as if his lack of boundaries took hers away as well. Despite the fact that she had no interest in getting up close and personal with this psychopath, his touch didn’t make her jolt like most people's did. It simply...was. She grew familiar with the feel of his skin, the way he smelled. She’d committed his tattoos to memory; not a lot else to do down here, and she studied them now.

“You’ve undergone a great trial”

His voice was so soft she almost assumed it was part of the sleep that was trying to claim her. She forced herself awake. “What...?”

“It was no simple task, what you’ve accomplished today.” He bandaged her wrist and looked up at her with a smile that was almost warm, but didn’t quite get there. “And the more so your reward for it”

“My reward?” She croaked.

“In the eyes of God.”

She sighed.

“God rewards us in our hardship. If not now, then in the next life.”

“You’re what would happen if someone put Tony Robbins, Joel Olsteen, and Jeffrey Dahmer in a blender” she said. Her voice was raspy from lack of water, and her inhibitions were lowered. She was too exhausted to fear retribution for her words: even if he chose to punish her she’d be too hoarse to give him the reactions he wanted.

Surprisingly, though, Joseph seemed to be pretending she hadn’t spoken at all. “Our trials are never more than we can bare though. The harder the struggle, the more God will empower us to resist.” He tore the end of the bandages with his teeth and fastened them in place.  
“By that logic then, all suffering is a choice”

“To a certain extent, perhaps.” His fingers began to caress hands and wrists, pressing hard into her arm. She gasped in pain, trying to pull back, but his grip was too firm. “Hush. This will bring some of the feeling back.”

“Mm.” She groaned, tilting her head back. “So what’s the choice for this suffering then?”

Out of the corner of her eye, she thought she saw his mouth quirk. A smile maybe, or half of one. The Father did love to draw her into these neverending verbal sparring matches. “You’ve survived far worse for far longer, so I have doubts that this qualifies as suffering.” His thumb pressed harshly into her arm, making her feel like the muscles in her hand unspooled very suddenly. “Or were you referring to a broader suffering?”

“I’ve got a long list of sufferings, Seed.” Her fingers flexed. They didn’t feel great, but it was a stiffness comparable to her foot falling asleep. “Not all of them can be my fault.”

“I never spoke of fault.” He cleaned up his tools, meticulous as ever. “Simply choice.” The lid to the medbox was closed, latched, and slid back under the bed. “Are you hungry?”

“How long was I out?”

“Two days, I think”

“....suppose its all a guess at this point. Yes. I am hungry.”

She half expected him to get his rosary out and have her say prayer, but instead he just rebound her hands. No zipties or handcuffs, though. Just some cloth that looked like it might have been a bedsheet. That got an eyebrow raise out of her but she wasn’t about to complain. The fabric bit her skin far less than the metal or plastic. He pulled her to her feet and guided her out of the room.

“So, the choice comment. That a subtle fuck you for....my choice?”

“I’ve told you before, God commands we forgive.”

“God commands a lot of things.” She took her seat at the table. “It doesn’t mean we go through with it.”

“.....Perhaps I do have some anger.” He made himself busy around the kitchenette. Dutch had stocked (even overstocked) on rations. Out of her many concerns, running out of food at least wasn’t among them. Joseph found a can and can opener. “But even you wouldn’t deny that had you chosen differently....perhaps you wouldn’t be in this scenario.”

“Dunno.” She leaned against the table, flexing her wrists against the fabric. “Nukes would’ve dropped either way.”

Silence fell. Molly thought back to that day. The fear in Pratt’s eyes and defiance in Hudson’s. The clouds of Bliss choking the air. And the weight like lead that entered her heart the moment she refused the Father’s last offer of escape.

Even before the bomb dropped there had been a sense of finality to that choice, she thought. Or maybe she was just reframing the memory in the aftermath. Still, even if the bomb would’ve dropped....she’d be lying if she said she hadn’t thought about it. The fight had taken a couple hours. If she’d chosen to walk away....it might have at least given them a head start.

“...ok. Say you’re right.” Her fingers drummed on the table. “Choices have consequences, I’ll grant you that one. But I’m still not sold on suffering as a choice.”

“Imagine a child that scrapes his knee.” Seed finally managed to get the lid off and upended the can into a sauce pan. Something pasta based, it looked like. “The pain is not a choice, it will hurt him regardless of what he does. But his choice is in his response. And ultimately crying and carrying on about it....it makes it hurt worse.” He fiddled with the stove, making a small blue pilot light go up. 

“But where do you draw the line? Where’s the natural response to pain end and the choice to suffer begin?”

“If you’re looking for a specific definition, I doubt I could give you one. Where does the period of natural grieving for loss end and the period of depression begin? The answer will be variable from person to person.”

“So how do you tell?”

“Hmm?”

“Say.....fuck it.” She leaned back in her chair, wincing slightly. “Say I’m one of your.....children. Your job is to tend to my morality, guide my soul, all that Georgetown shit”

His eye twitched a bit and she quickly reeled herself in. 

“Anyways. As a shepherd, how do you find out where my line is?”

He was quiet for a few minutes and she was worried she’d overstepped it with that Georgetown comment. Instead he got two plates from the cupboard and began dishing up the food.

“You know, in some ways, the job of a therapist and a priest aren’t that different.”

He brought the plates back and set it in front of her, along with some silverware. The binds were loose enough that she could maneuver the knife and fork. Probably end up with saucy hands but she could deal with that. “Did you know I used to work in a psychiatric hospital?”

“Didn’t just burn your books.” She started eating hungrily. “Read through it once.”

“Surprising.”

“Some kind of misguided attempt to...know my enemy, I suppose. In the end, it just left me....”

Left her what? Confused? Sad? Pitying? There were no good answers. He seemed to sense that and glossed over it.

“Regardless, I’ve spent time as a priest and I’ve spent time around therapists. And the similarities are remarkable. Both are in the business of people. Both are sought out under the impression that they will have the cure to what ails you. Sometimes this impression is correct. Sometimes it’s wrong, because the man you seek is a charlatan. But above all, their job isn’t to proscribe solutions.” He ate his own. In that careful slow manner that she was certain would somehow eventually come to irritate her. “Its to listen. And to understand.”

“Can you really.....I mean, what’s the purpose then?” She said between bites. “If you claim to have the message from God, and yet when people come to you for advice you just listen to them talk, then why not just send them to listen to a friend? Why bring God into it if He’s not going to speak.”

“We’re God’s creation. More often than not he speaks far more effectively through us than through any others means.”

“.....maybe.” She snorted. “Would it kill Him to occasionally drop a voicemail though? Just to clear somethings up?”  
“You’re tiptoeing towards heresy, my child.” He said, a slight glint to his eyes. “But.....I certainly empathize with the desire, however crudely expressed.”

“Hey, if you’re right, which....” She glanced around. “I’ve got half decent reasons to believe, you’re actually one of the few who’s had a direct line to him at some point. Does that make you lucky?”

“It makes me...special.”

She sighed.

His mouth quirked a bit and he resumed eating. 

A few minutes later she spoke again. “So....that’s what you did? When you weren’t ordering the unwashed masses after me with guns? Listening?”

“Contrary to what you and your police department believed, we did in fact have many voluntary recruits. I gained them by listening when no one else would.”

“And then using what they told you to manipulate them”

“If your therapist listens to you and then prescribes you medication that they happen to get a cut from at the pharmacy for prescribing, is that also manipulation?”

“Yes! Its still wrong!”

“Even if its medicine that you actually need? Medicine that helps you, makes you happier?”

“......”

He steepled his fingertips. “I want to be clear here, my child. My patience for your self-righteous attitude regarding my flock is not infinite. In fact, you are quite near its limit for the day. But in the interest of honesty, I will admit, I reaped benefits from having more and more followers. But you place a false dichotomy between gain for the Project and gain for the individual members. What if they were happy in ways you simply could not understand?”

“I’ve met your brand of ‘happy’, Father.” Her own voice was cold. “Seems to come in three varieties. Brainwashed, drugged up, or scared shitless. The happiest ones always seemed to die first-”

“Deputy”  
The word hung line a cold stone on his tongue and she fell silent.

The silence stretched out in between them. Him examining her face and her trying to pretend likes she didn’t notice (or care) about the staring. 

“Did you have someone to listen to you, Deputy?”

“....what?”

“All those people, so indebted to you. Surely there must have been a few who could listen to you....unveil yourself. Every fault. Every flaw. Every trauma, hiding in dark corners.”

“....I-.......that’s not-” she fell silent. 

He was trying to bait her.

But there wasn’t anyone. 

Oh, sure, she’d had some closer than others. Jess and Hudson were probably the best friends she had. Sharky had gotten her drunk enough times to have heard her say some weird shit. But the truth is....there were things she kept back from almost everybody. She had responsibilities. The legendary Deputy, Hope County’s liberation front line. Bright spot of hope out in Big Sky Country. She couldn’t afford to falter too much. Or the shine would come right off that.

“.....maybe I’m ok with that. Maybe not everything needs to be brought into the air.”

“Do they not ache, my child? Do they not fester in the dark places inside you?”

“I-”

“Surely there’s come moments. Moments where the others expect to much of you, or brush past your feelings. And you wish you could look them in the eye, and say “You don’t know why this hurts me. But let me tell you.’”

She fell silent.

“Pain has to be validated before it can be moved past.” He cleared off the table and pulled her to her feet. “You cannot become healthy before you acknowledge you’re sick. So, Deputy. Perhaps its time you find a doctor.”


End file.
